12 Weird, Bizarre, Unlikely Gadgets You Strap to Your Back

When we first saw Google’s Trekker contraption in June (see photo above), we were impressed that the company was able to squeeze all of its Street View technology into what is essentially a high-tech backpack. Before Trekker, Google had to load an entire Subaru full of equipment in order to capture continuously panning images of city streets. But now all that image-capture and location-awareness tech can be strapped on one’s back.

Trekker is relatively lightweight at 35 pounds, and its 15-lens, 360-degree camera can shoot 46-megapixel images. Everything can be controlled via an Android phone, making this dynamo even more of a technological marvel than it would seem at first glance.

But the Trekker isn’t the only back-strapped gadget to capture Wired’s collective imagination. After Google showed off its one-man-street-view-van in June, we began researching the history of gadgets and technologies that strap to one’s back, and were blown away by the sheer volume of examples. Some are pure fiction, mind you, and many are variations of the basic jet pack theme. But that doesn’t diminish their curiosity factor one bit.

Have we missed any other back-strapped technologies? Let us know in the comments below!

Additional reporting by Peter McCollough.

Photo: Nathan Olivarez-Giles/Wired

The Rocketeer's Proto-Jet Pack

We have to assume that humankind has fantasized about independent flight since the very first cave man saw his very first bird. Flash forward to 1982 when pin-up illustrator and comic book creator Dave Stevens conceived arguably the coolest flying back-gadget hero ever -- the Rocketeer. As Stevens' story goes, Cliff Secord, a struggling racing pilot in 1930s Los Angeles, finds a stolen, conceptual jetpack, and goes on to fight mob bosses, save his friends and love interest, and zoom through the skies with abandon.

Disney made The Rocketeer into a film in 1991, and the flick has since achieved cult status. And at least one Wired reporter was so inspired by The Rocketeer that he put a bucket on his head, slid on his backpack, and jumped off a few couches as a kid.

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Productions

Yves “Jetman” Rossy's Turbine-Powered Wing

To hell with hang gliders: In 2006,Yves Rossy took flight with a jet-powered wing. We’ve been writing about Rossy, who calls himself Jetman, for years. He’s flown above France, the English Channel, the Swiss Alps, in formation with jets, and even unsuccesfully over the Strait of Gibraltar. (He had to bail out, and was saved by his trusty parachute.) Rossy designs and manufacturers the apparatus itself. The wing weighs some 200 pounds, and features four separate engines that provide 200 pounds of thrust.

Photo: Joe Wiecha/Jetman

North Face Avalanche Airbag Safety System Backpack

The North Face Avalanche Airbag Safety System Backpack could use a far shorter name, but it’s one of the coolest real-world back-strapped gadgets we’ve seen. It doesn’t allow you to fly and it isn’t a weapon, but it can help save the lives of snow adventurers stuck in avalanches. With the pull of a ripcord, two 170-litre airbags inflate with nitrogen to push the user up to the top of an avalanche -- because no one wants to be entombed at the bottom of a mountain of snow.

Photo: Mathew Scott

Minority Report’s Hoverpacks

We can’t talk jetpacks without mentioning the flying cops that appeared in 1999’s Minority Report, directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on a Philip K. Dick short story of the same name. In the movie, patrol officers get around the city with "hoverpacks" complete with sirens and red-and-blue flashing lights -- much like what we see today on cop cars and motorcycles. The scene with flying cops fighting Tom Cruise while soaring between buildings is among the movie's most memorable action sequences, and speaks directly to our jetpack-loving hearts.

Image courtesy 20th Century Fox

JetLev

Not all jetpacks run solely off jet fuel. The JetLev is powered by high-octane gasoline, but uses water to propel users as high as 30 feet about whatever ocean, lake, river or pool they're floating over. With a 200 horsepower engine running inside a small boat on the water below, water is pumped up a 33-foot hose attached to the backpack portion of the JetLev. The water moves at more than 1,000 gallons per minute, and squirts out through two large nozzles on the back-strapped assembly. As water is pumped through the pack, whoever's strapped in -- there’s a five-point harness -- rises through the air. The JetLev isn’t cheap at $99,500, but at this point in time, this is one of the only jetpacks you can even buy.

Photo: JetLev

Super Mario's FLUDD Pack

In the 2002 game Super Mario Sunshine, Nintendo's iconic plumber-adventurer strapped on a water-powered backpack that works much like the JetLev (see previous image). Just as the JetLev does in the real world, Mario's water pack -- specifically called the FLUDD, or Flash Liquidizing Ultra Dousing Device -- sprays water out of two nozzles to push its user into the air. But the FLUDD is more than a backpack. It also talks to Mario, explaining plot points in the game, and can be used to douse bad guys and other obstacles as Mario searches for Princess Peach and cleans up graffiti and pollution along the way.

Image courtesy Nintendo

Ghostbusters’ Proton Packs

While the first Ghostbusters film was released back in 1984, the movie's fictional tech is still cutting edge -- Apple and Google aren’t yet getting into the ectoplasmic extradition business, as far as we know. The Ghostbusters team members used their back-mounted Proton Packs -- essentially particle accelerators -- to shoot bursts of energy from attached Neutrino Wands to weaken ghosts, and then pull them down into a “Ghost Trap” box, where the spirits were detained. There’s no real-world equivalent here, but that’s just fine by us. We ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

Images courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Dr. Octopus Robotic Tentacles

Dr. Octopus is one of Spider-Man’s most nefarious opponents. Otto Gunther Octavius, whom Spidey calls Doc Ock, is a nuclear physicist who bears the brunt of a horrible explosion when one of his own experiments goes awry. The accident leaves Dr. Octopus with robotic tentacles -- they're fused into his back, and offer all the tactile utility of arms and legs. Take note, dear reader: This is what can happen when back-strapped technology gets into the wrong hands.

Images courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Flame Thrower

Compared to today’s military tech like drones, military cyborgs and robotic insects, the M2 flamethrower may seem a bit crude. Two tanks full of fuel, strapped to a soldier's back, spewed out flames at a range of about 20 to 40 yards. While there were variations of the M2 used during World War II, the one depicted in the photo above shows a Marine fighting in Iwo Jima with a gun bearing two triggers -- one trigger to release fuel, and another to ignite the flame.

Photo courtesy of United States Navy Naval History and Heritage Command

Condorman's Wing Suit

This heavily panned 1981 Disney CIA-thriller-for-kids was centered around Woodrow Wilkins, a comic book illustrator who brings his own comic book character to life by building a retractable-winged condor suit. Sometimes it flies, sometimes it doesn’t. But we wouldn’t be surprised if Yves “Jetman” Rossy has a copy of this terrible movie on his shelf. And considering that Condorman woos a russian spy by the end of the movie, we’re pretty sure this back-strapped gadget makes for quite the avian mating dance.

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Productions

Fireball's Airborne Flamethrower

With a combination jetpack-flamethrower, football star-turned-actor Jim Brown ups the back-gadget ante in The Running Man, a loose adaptation of a Stephen King novel. Brown plays the character Fireball, a game show gladiator who's charged with hunting down contestants who are conveniently culled from government prisons. Think The Hunger Games, but with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Brown in spandex suits. Regardless, Fireball's gadget is the perfect marriage of a jetpack and a flamethrower -- two badass technologies, back-strapped or otherwise.